Posts Tagged ‘Video Games’

Another year, another COD, right? It is the one thing you can always count on to terrify publishers from releasing on the same date which makes the week’s purchasing decision a pretty easy one. You’re either getting Call of Duty or you’re not. There aren’t other games to even consider. But with this being the umpteenth release of the blockbuster franchise, how does it live up to previous years and even more importantly, how does it compare to the hype?

The Long

With their being three developers in the rotation now for the Call of Duty franchise, Sledgehammer enters the fray with a new IP with the Advanced Warfare story. A drastically different tone than either Black Ops 2 or Ghost, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare follows the world of the privatized military which are effectively government sanctioned mercenaries. As seen by all of the marketing materials, this corporation known as Atlas is headed up by the one and only Kevin Spacey and the role he takes as the player’s surrogate father after his own son is killed in combat.

Without giving too much information about the story, it follows pretty much every one of the expected beats. It’s not that it’s bad, but it is not going to surprise anyone either. It’s like going into a summer blockbuster that has no need for plot twists. It has a ton of polish and explosions that prevent you from having to think too hard.

At Comic-Con in San Diego we got the opportunity to take a closer look at the latest additions to Skylanders with Skylanders Trap Team. While we had already gotten a peek at the title, there were still some awesome announcements behind the game along with some great insight from the designers as well.

First came the announcement of the Skylanders Trap Team Dark Edition Starter Pack. Like last year’s SWAP Force Dark Edition, the set will come with some special dark paint variants of characters. Unlike last year’s though, there will be only three new Trap Team members without any sprinkling of classic characters.

It will also come with a new Portal of Power which will have a new feature in addition to a new look, the ability to use Traps to capture villains in game and use them while playing. The Dark Edition will come with a limited edition over sized trap allowing players to capture Chaos.

For most of the gaming popular, this was the first game they ever took home. While there were the select families that had the Atari 2600 or even Pong, it was Super Mario Bros. that made its way into homes across the country in unprecedented number in 1985. After likely billions of hours played and incalculable deaths, there are people still playing in 2014 and trying to beat it JUST a little faster.

YouTuber LordSaradoc has made his name on the space with about 90 videos doing speedruns. Just about a week ago, he uploaded a new one where he looks to have broken the Super Mario Bros. speed run with not just a perfect run with no deaths, but also accomplishing it in world record time. If everything is accurate, it looks as though LordSaradoc was able to complete the game in 4:57.69. In less than 5 minutes, he was able to run the perfect path doing what most people could only dream of accomplishing.

The funny thing is that movie games have a pretty terrible reputation in the gaming world. Most are quickly put together knock-offs of what could be considered a full game that depend upon riding on the fame of the established franchise. But back in 2004, Spider-Man 2 based off the Sami Rami take on the franchise changed all that.

Without reliance upon the movie, Spider-Man 2 as a game was just good. It was a great movie game, a great super hero game and most importantly a great Spider-Man game (considered the best of the character up to this point). But ten years later, the game and movie franchises have both gotten a reboot and that’s not always a good thing.

The Long…

First let’s talk about the story of The Amazing Spider-Man 2. While I applaud the writers trying to separate themselves from the movie slightly be adding in a whole new subplot connecting the scenes between the movie as previous games often do, the beats in this one just feel off. The early beat that introduces the game’s main antagonist also directly messes with the whole Uncle Ben story and what happens to Ben’s killer. It feels about as accurate to the character as Superman killing in Man of Steel.

Another day, another dollar. Another Loot Crate, another unboxing. Our apologies if you already came across it yesterday, but if you haven’t, you can check out Whiskey & Waffle’s Loot Crate War on the Adventure themed box. (Actually, even if you have already seen it, you can watch it again.)

This month’s Loot Crate theme is all about Adventure. As you can probably guess from the cover image above there is some Minecraft and some Legend of Zelda swag inside but also some Adventure Time love as well as some gear from some of our fellow YouTubers like Captain Sparklez and Markiplier.

SFX guru and director Mike Diva has shown a love for gaming on his YouTube channel a number of times. Last year Mike put out an awesome homage to both Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon embracing pure 1980’s goodness just like the game and then to Mortal Kombat with a killer fight scene and phenomenal Easter egg joke inserted in there too. You can check out both on his YouTube channel.

Today, Mike released his latest video in anticipation of Ubisoft’s upcoming release Watch Dogs which comes out on Tuesday. In it, he explores the game’s tech vibe as well as the upcoming Season Pass DLC which will include cyborgs. And if there is one thing Mike Diva knows how to do, it’s bash cyborgs (he proved that last year in the Far Cry 3: BloodDragon video after all). Since it is a short, we won’t ruin it for you but it does have a distinct Diva flair to it

Microsoft knows that Halo is a system seller. That’s why last year at E3 we saw the TBD titled Halo get a tease. But without knowing when the next Halo would be coming out, they needed to keep the appetite wet for gamers before the hoopla of this year’s E3 kicked in. What better way to do so than open up preorders to the world. If you head to Amazon you can place your preorder on Halo 5: Guardians which is set to ship by end of year 2015 (no doubt, this will be more formally announced with an actual release date at E3 or at least a quarter).

There are two things that stand out about Halo 5: Guardians based off the current cover artwork. The first is the name. Since Halo: Combat Evolved, this is the first proper Halo title to have a suffix attached to it. This leads one to believe it is either because they feel just another number isn’t enough of a differentiator to keep motivating new purchases or these new Guardians are that essential to the plot.

Almost four years ago, a fan made Mortal Kombat short made its way online which lead to both a resurgence in interest in Mortal Kombat and eventually two seasons of Mortal Kombat: Legacy which lived on the Machinima YouTube channel. While there were some hiccups in the storytelling and even continuity between seasons, no one could argue that Machinima put major promotion behind the series and laud its success.

Now, in a world where you’ll seemingly never see Street Fighter vs. Mortal Kombat on consoles, MK’s age old nemesis finds its way too to the Machinima channel with Street Fighter: Assassin’s Fist. Backed by Capcom and Honda (which still leaves one’s head reeling), Street Fighter: Assassin’s Fist will debut on the Machinima channel on May 23rd. The narrative will follow series’ favorites Ken and Ryu in their training under their master Gōken before the events of the world warrior tournament come to pass.

As seen in the trailer, Akuma will also make his way into the series and will actually be played by the show’s creator Joey Ansah. In addition to living on the YouTube channel, Content Media says it will also bring it to TV, on-demand, DVD and Blu-ray.

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare envisions battlegrounds of the future, where both technology and tactic have evolved to usher in a new era of combat for the franchise. Power changes everything on November 4th, 2014.

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